A combustor with effusion-cooled panels coated with a thermal barrier coating is difficult to repair. A typical effusion-cooled combustor has tens of thousand of holes regularly spaced over the area to be cooled. In manufacture, the panels are made by first coating the metal with the thermal barrier coating, and then drilling the effusion cooling holes. This approach ensures the holes are not blocked by thermal barrier coating, as the holes diameters are typically quite small. When this combustor goes to repair, it is difficult to cut out a patch, because the holes are so closely spaced together that one cannot cut between them, thus necessitating that large panels need to be replaced all at once, even though only a small portion may need repair. Replacing large panels is costly. U.S. Pat. No. 7,124,487 discloses a method for making modular effusion panel subassemblies remote from the combustor liner, removing a damaged panel from the combustor liner, and replacing the non-effusion or damaged panel with the modular effusion panel. Room for improvement exists.